After very many histories of this place in the Holy Bible, which there is no need to repeat here, -- in this city did Alexander the Great, at length, besiege Babemeses the Persian, by the space of two months. "And that city, which before-time was most famous, was laid waste by him, and rendered desert." Not that he had destroyed the building of the city, or consumed it with fire; for presently after his death, Antigonus and Ptolemy, his captains, fighting, it had walls, gates, and fortifications: but that he divested it of its ancient glory, so that it was at last melted into a new city of that name built nearer the sea, where formerly had been 'the haven of the Gazaeans.' That is called by Diodorus, 'old Gaza'; and 'Gaza desert,' by Strabo, and the New Testament, Acts 8:26. At last it was called 'New Maijuma,' and after that 'Constantia': -- concerning which, see Eusebius, of 'the Life of Constantine,' book iv. chap.28; and Sozomen's 'Ecclesiastical History,' book v. chap.3...

There is mentioned the 'mart of Gaza,' one of the three more famed marts, -- to wit, that of Gaza, and of Aco, and of Botna.

There was a place also without the city, which was called, 'The waste (or desert) of the leper's cloister.'